환영합니다, 한국인 독자들! 여기 미국, 또 한국 사회비판을 많이 하는데 여기서 영어로만 블로깅합니다. 근데 다른 제가 운영하는 사이트에서는 많은 스트리트패션 사진들이 있고 다른 사진들이 있습니다. 한국말로 제 블로그도 있고요. 들어와주셔서 감사합니다!
Whoa. My former student just IM-ed me the fact that my Hangyeoreh story is at the TOP of Daum's news page. She found out about the story not because of me, but because she just clicked on it, and there was my name as she read it.
THAT is totally tripping me out.
Right there at the top. A pic I took. Whoa.
The article's title reads: "Fellow Koreans, does this subject make you uncomfortable?"
I think I'm feeling just how good a title it was, and I'm liking what that writer (although she's a photographer by trade) did with the story. It wasn't just that it was positive -- it was fair. She took notes, asked follow-up questions, confirmed dates and names, and even pushed for as exact dates as possible on the pictures, which I have written on the negatives, but forgot in the long time it's been since I took them.
It's my first positive interaction with the Korean media -- well, actually the second, to be fair -- and I'm pretty jazzed about that. I'm still quite wary of them, but you know what? Good for them, and I'm glad to have been part of an interaction that is both positive for me personally, as well as a positive portrayal of a foreigner out there doing something besides being the 'usual suspect' that has tended to dominate Korean newspapers for the past few years.
I'm more jazzed up and inspired these days, especially because things are going well photographically. And I'm happy to see one of my major assumptions coming true -- that Koreans actually CAN BE and ARE interested in foreign folks doing stuff in the news besides what certain people think sells newspapers, if good reporters bother to get the story out. It was harder for her to sit down with me, get the details right, deal with getting the images at high-rez, etc. But it made for a better story, right? And it "sells," right?
Anyway. I'm babbling now. I'm just very happy personally, as well as to be a positive story on the Internet news, especially since the only other stories about foreigners with cameras, in particular, were the ones about the South Asian guys snapping beach pics this past summer, and the Japanese guy who got arrested for trying to make pornos and doing upskirt shots here a few years back.
At least I'm faring better than that!